Author: Ms Whorlow

Today, Portpatrick P4-7 travelled through to join their classmates at Leswalt for a Scottish Parliament Outreach workshop.  An Education Officer travelled down from Edinburgh to tell us all about how our system of democracy works in Scotland.

The children used electronic voting equipment to answer multiple choice questions on our Parliament and Democracy.  Innes was top for answering the most questions correctly, closely followed by Lachlan in second place.

The boys and girls split into groups to create their own manifestoes on a range of political issues.  We had the following issues represented:

• Save The Earth Party,
• Music Party
• School Party
• Sports Party
• Animal Welfare Party

Each group elected a leader and this person presented their manifesto to the class.  The children then voted using a traditional ballot system to elect their own ‘MSP’.  The Environmental Party was elected to represent us.

The children now have a stronger understanding of how politics function in Scotland and had a great time learning in a practical, interactive way.

 

Our Trio schools have been having a very busy time participating in the Scottish Maths Week. The Scottish government has launched a brand new initiative to help everyone in our nation see maths positively.  The aim is for everyone to experience the benefits, joy and beauty of maths in exciting new ways.

The children have had a full timetable of maths focussed activities:

• Sumdog – national online maths competition
• Manga High Numeracy Ninjas competition
• Outdoor learning for numeracy/maths working with decimals
• Maths Madness – whole school number fun with songs etc.
• Maths games afternoon kindly attended by parents to help children enjoy maths through play
• Careers in our community speed interviews; where friends and family joined us to discuss how maths has a role in the world of work

We were joined by Susan McCourty, our local post mistress, Ali Cerexhe & Robert McQueen from our local lifeboat, Paul McQuillan – bus driver, Mr & Mrs Orr-Ewing – estate management, Miss Whorlow – electronics engineer and Miss Kerr – teacher. All shared how maths is needed in their jobs.

Friday saw the culmination of our maths week. The children engaged in a carousel of activities. They used their creativity to design maths promotion resources for the Scottish Maths week competiton; focussing on why we like and need maths in our life.  This was expressed through posters, songs, poetry, art and rap by the children.

We were then given the opportunity to apply programming and robotics. The children used Lego WeDo to construct models and then use coding blocks to make the models perform actions.  We had tilt aeroplane propellers spinning, footballer’s legs kicking and crazy birds twirling by the end of the session.

Everyone all loved their shared day with Leswalt & Kircolm on Friday, bringing an end to this important initiative. They enjoyed socialising and working together to produce fantastic maths work.

The trio schools were treated to a very special privilege yesterday.  We were invited to attend a school trip to Corsewall lighthouse as part of its 200 year anniversary celebration.  The event was kindly organised by Mike Bullock of the Northern Lighthouse Board, Mr John Ross and Mr Miller who also volunteer their time to the good work of the Northern Lighthouse Board.

The children were given a presentation teaching them all about the history of lighthouses and the work of the Northern Lighthouse Board.  We were then given a tour up to the top of the lighthouse to experience the structure and mechanics first hand.

There are 212 lighthouses in Scotland and the Isle of Mann under the control of the Northern Lighthouse Board.  Only 6 are open to the public.  Corsewall lighthouse has never allowed a public trip so, we were given a very special honour to tour the structure on its very first school trip ever!

Primary 6 and 7 were very active today as they participated in a triathlon event at Stranraer Academy.  Primary schools from all around our area came along to be active by swimming, cycling/scootering and running.

The children gave it their all and did us proud!

#effective contributors

This session was followed by a drama performance of Jason and the Argonauts.  This was a revamped version with both humour and historical accuracy. The children behaved impeccably and represented our school well at both public events.  We returned to school for a well earned lunch.

#responsible citizens

Class 2 travelled to Wigtown in their role as Crime Scene Investigators as part of Dumfries and Galloway’s Science Fair for Schools.

An expensive painting had been stolen and the children were required to use their crime busting skills to identify the culprit.  They applied a range of scientific and technological methods to analyse clues and evidence from the scene of the crime.  They worked painstakingly to identify the following:

• Pose for mug shots
• Take their own fingerprints and identify the fingerprint pattern for each of the suspects
• Build photo-fit composite I.D.’s from eye witness descriptions
• Run facial recognition software to narrow down suspects
• Analyse soil samples under a microscope to identify the soil type of residue left by a footprint at the scene
• Use Ultraviolet light to match footprints to the suspects footwear
• Use microscopes to identify fibre fragments of clothing
• Use DNA coding to identify the suspect
• Take notes from eye witness accounts describing the suspect

A real life CSI was on hand to demonstrate how to take fingerprints at the scene of the crime using a range of equipment.  She discussed her career and the kinds of knowledge and skills that are needed in the role.

Once all the evidence had been gathered and analysed the children then came back together to discuss the list of suspects and make a conclusion as to who the art thief was.  The crime was solved!

At the end of the session we all enjoyed singing Happy Birthday to Lachlan.  We enjoyed eating birthday cake even more!

P1-3 have been learning about Our Community. They went for an observational walk in Portpatrick village to identify the different kinds of places that could be found.   They then carried out a sorting activity in the classroom by categorising the facilities they saw into:

• Places to eat
• Places to stay
• Places to drink
• Things to do

#Successful Learners

We have been waiting patiently for a sunny day to allow us to participate in an outdoor shadow investigation.  The weather today provided the ideal conditions for us to explore shadows around us.  Class 1 & 2 worked collaboratively to undertake some, or all, of the following tasks as appropriate:

• Identify the compass point direction of our playground layout
• Sketch the direction of the Sun on a bird’s eye view map of the playground area
• Record shadows from objects in our playground environment
• Trace round our own shadows, noting their orientation
• Measure the length of our shadows using metric units

Class 2 are going to continue our science investigation by conducting a fair test that the boys and girls have designed.  Mia is our control object that we will use to block the Sun and create a shadow.  We will measure and record both the direction and length of the shadow at different times of day to observe any changes.  She will stand in the same location each time. Class 2 have predicted that the direction and length will vary dependent on the position of the Sun in the sky!  Do you think their prediction is correct?

# Successful Learners & Effective Contributors

 

Update – Today Class 2 completed our investigation into shadow direction, angle and length. We discovered that at the start of the day Mia’s shadow was long and got gradually shorter as the Sun was higher in the sky.  The shadow length then began to reduce in the afternoon.  Also, we measured the angle of the shadowa and it was moving approximately 20 degrees every hour!

Today, the whole school engaged in collaborative learning with their buddies from the opposite class.  The boys and girls are preparing for careers in the future by learning how to complete job application forms.  They have worked together to identify the personal skills and qualities they each have that would make them effective in the role of a pupil council representative.  P4-7 are learning to use the skills of persuasion as part of their Literacy and Language learning this term.

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The boys and girls of Portpatrick Primary look very smart today for their first day of our new term.  We are so pleased to welcome Lotty, Cameron, Max, Lewis and Atticus to our school as our brand new pupils.  They have been enjoying their day and are loving Barbara’s delicious meals.

The boys and girls took advantage of the dry spell to complete their community litter pick as part of our ongoing Eco School’s work.  We helped to tidy the park and picnic area in the village.  We were impressed to see that the quantity of litter has reduced since our last activity.

We took a moment to admire the view from Mr Tyson’s bench, kindly donated by the community council.  We tidied around his bench to make it spick and span.

We then returned to school to tidy our own playground.

#Responsible Citizens